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Monday, October 01, 2012

The Knowledge Of God Part IV

"And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew
22:37)

A popular and recent epistemology that has made inroads in the secular
world is Idealism, the theory that reality is the product of the human
mind, and that nothing can be known that is independent of the mind. Such
a basis for knowledge is the height of autonomy, and although some
Christians are drawn into some strands of Idealism, one has to wonder if
these can maintain an Orthodox view of Creation. There are several
subcategories of Idealism, but all of them have in common the belief that
reality is dependent solely on the preception of the mind.

The human mind is indeed an awe-inspiring entity. Indeed, the most
challenging study that the mind can undertake seems to be the study of
itself. Seeing as how we know so little about the mind, on what authority
would anyone claim that it can be the basis for reality? Idealist Immanuel Kant asserts:

"...if I remove the thinking subject, the whole material world
must at once vanish because it is nothing but a phenomenal appearance in
the sensibility of ourselves as a subject, and a manner or species of
representation." - Critique of Pure Reason A383

However, it does not follow that, because the preception of an object
exists in the mind, that existence of that same object is dependent upon
the mind. Idealists assume, without any justification, that the essense
of any object is only in it's perception, thus equating the separation of
mind from matter with the separation of perception from existence.
Of course, having the human mind as the ultimate source of reality poses
several problems:

2. Idealism can neither allow for not account for mistakes in "perception",
mistaken identity, optical illusions, the sounds of the ocean inside of a
seashell, etc. since reality is based upon perception. There is nothing
outside of the mind by which we may validate the accuracy of our ideas,
including other people's ideas.

3. Idealism cannot justify any objective truth claim, but rather results in Subjectivism in
both Epistemology and Ethics (Whose mind contains actual knowledge of
these things? What about minds that disagree with each other?)

As amazing as the mind is, it is not autonomous. God is sovereign over
the mind (Deuteronomy
28:28, 1 Kings
3:9, 2
Thessalonians 2:11). The mind itself cannot exist unless it is
created by God, and can only reason and think as a reflection of what God
thinks and reasons. As fallen creatures, our minds are by nature at
enmity with God (Romans 8:6-7),
and thus need to be renewed (Romans 12:2).
While the mind is an important means by which knowledge may be obtained,
it cannot be, in and of itself, the basis for either knowledge or reality.

2 comments:

If reality is dependent solely on the preception of the mind, then is it true to say that prior to the advent of the human mind there was no reality? Or is reality only reality when there is a human mind to perceive it? Did the law of non-contradiction exist prior to the advent of humans? Can the universe have both existed and not existed at the ame time prior to the existence of humans and the human mind? Or did the universe exist without the need for a human mind to perceive its existence?

PL: "Idealism cannot justify any objective truth claim, but rather results in Subjectivism in both Epistemology and Ethics (Whose mind contains actual knowledge of these things? What about minds that disagree with each other?)"

Indeed. On Idealism, where's the connection between what the mind perceives and actual knowledge? Who's mind has the authority to arbitrate on such an issue? As PL asks, what about minds that disagree with eachother? Majority consensus? Says who? Such are the dilemmas for the proponents of Idealism. Here we have pure, unadulterated subjectivism. That might work for some, but it is not a valid basis for knowledge.